The following opinion was provided in a letter to the editor of a national aeronautics magazine:
“Manned space flight is costly and dangerous. Moreover, the recent success of a series of unmanned space probes and satellites has demonstrated that a great deal of useful information can be gathered without the costs and risks associated with sending men and women into space. Therefore, we should invest our resources in unmanned space flight.""
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The opinion recommends that resource should be invested in unmanned space flight rather than manned one because manned space flight are costly/ dangerous and there have been recent success of a series of unmanned space probes and satellites. However, this argument rests on three assumptions that needs to be critically examined.
First, the author of this opinion assumes that manned space flight are costlier and riskier than unmanned space flight. While it might be true that manned space flight are costly and risky, there is no evidence to suggest that they are more costly and risky than unmanned ones. For example, driverless cars have been touted as the future of automobiles in the last decades because they would be more cost effective and less risky as they could help ease traffic situations and would be removing the inherent risks associated with humans when driving. However, recent studies have shown that this may not be true. For example, a driverless car is much more likely to collide with pedestrains crossing the road than a human because it does not have the emotional intelligence to deal with "out-of -the-box" scenerios. If these scenerios also apply to unmanned space probes, it could turn out that they are more risky and costly than manned ones making the author's opinion less valid.
Second, the author of this opinion uses the recent success of a series of unmanned space vehicles to show how successful they are. However, the author is clearly assuming that this sample space is representative of the entire population space flights. It might be that these unmanneed vehicles achieved this level of success because they were sent on easier tasks than a normal manned space vehicle will be. It might also be that extra attention was taken to guide this unmanned space vehicles than they will be usually given. For instance, driverless cars were found to be far more successful in small, well mapped areas than cars with drivers because it was easier to navigate those scenerios and there is little or no room for surprises. Clearly, a small, well mapped area is a far easier task than the real world where the driverless cars will be deployed thus these tests are not a representative sample of the actual scenerios. This might also hold true for the unmanned space vehicles. If it turns out the sample space in terms of space flight of the unmanned vehicles is not representative of the population of all space flights, then the author's opinion does not hold much water.
Third, the author is using vague words in the form of "a great deal of useful information" to describe the success of the unmanned space flights. What does the author mean by a great deal of useful information? The author is clearly assuming that the information provided by this unmanned space flights is clearly good enough to ensure we can discard manned space flights. However, there is no evidence to suggest this is true. It may be that the volume and quality of the information obtained from the unmanned vehicle in far less than that which would have been obtained from a manned space flight instead. The author has to be clear on his/her definition of great and useful especially in relation to the manned space flight. Before we can draw any meaningful conclusion from the usefulness of the information provided by the unmanned space flights, they have to be compared and constrasted with the information provided by a manned space flight on the same mission. Without this comparison and contrast, no meaningful conclusion can be drawn and the author's argument cannot be ascertained to be valid.
In conclusion, the author's argument as it currently stands is flawed as it rests on a number of currenty unfounded assumptions. More evidence needs to gathered, in form of a proper scientific study before the author's argument can be properly evaluated.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 651 350
No. of Characters: 3162 1500
No. of Different Words: 241 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.051 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.857 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.474 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 227 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 156 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 107 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 52 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.038 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.549 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.692 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.342 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.511 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.144 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 965, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... and costly than manned ones making the authors opinion less valid. Second, the au...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 1148, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...pulation of all space flights, then the authors opinion does not hold much water. ...
^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 1065, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ningful conclusion can be drawn and the authors argument cannot be ascertained to be va...
^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 20, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ed to be valid. In conclusion, the authors argument as it currently stands is flaw...
^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 210, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...of a proper scientific study before the authors argument can be properly evaluated.
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, however, if, may, second, so, then, third, thus, well, while, as to, for example, for instance, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 46.0 19.6327345309 234% => Less to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 50.0 28.8173652695 174% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3254.0 2260.96107784 144% => OK
No of words: 650.0 441.139720559 147% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.00615384615 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.04926703274 4.56307096286 111% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.60100117274 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 250.0 204.123752495 122% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.384615384615 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1008.0 705.55239521 143% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 57.7703062483 57.8364921388 100% => OK
Chars per sentence: 125.153846154 119.503703932 105% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.0 23.324526521 107% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.69230769231 5.70786347227 82% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 8.20758483034 183% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.286652432177 0.218282227539 131% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.107406039138 0.0743258471296 145% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0991721477052 0.0701772020484 141% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.185476950431 0.128457276422 144% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.104484577334 0.0628817314937 166% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.7 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.07 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.84 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 122.0 98.500998004 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.